Rollout plan

This page says how Distribution Club goes from nothing on 7 September 2026 to a working marketplace by the end of 2027. It sets out five phases with their dates, what gets built and sold in each, who does the work, and the numbers a phase must hit before the next one starts. It also says how we find creators, how we find brands, how the team grows, and what we drop if we run late.

Draft v0.1 · Last updated 19 September 2026

On this page

1. 1. Rollout principles
2. 2. The four phases at a glance
3. 3. Phase 0, MVP sprint
4. 4. Phase 1, Build-out while live
5. 5. Phase 2, Open creator beta (worldwide)
6. 6. Phase 3, Public launch
7. 7. Phase 4, Scale
8. 8. Supply: how we get creators
9. 9. Demand: how we get brands
10. 10. One founder, hires by trigger
11. 11. Operating cadence
12. 12. What we cut if we are late

1. Rollout principles

A few words first. A brand is the paying customer. A creator is the person who makes and posts a short video. A campaign is what a brand creates: a brief, a 10-item checklist, a fund (the money the brand deposits) and settings. A gig is one unit of work for one creator inside a campaign. Dispatch is how the system sends gig offers to creators, who accept or decline. Ops is our own operations team: review, fraud, support. Five rules shape everything below.

1.1 Global from day one

We launch worldwide, not in one country first. Any creator 18 or over can join from any country where a payout rail can pay them, on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok or X (a creator whose country does not have a given platform simply connects one of the others, for example a creator in India connects Instagram, YouTube or X instead of TikTok). Any brand can join from any country the payments partner can collect from. The product and every brief are in English at launch; a creator may post content in any language they choose, and a brand can filter by language. Every price is in US dollars: the rate card, the fund, the wallet and the fee are the same everywhere, and money is converted to the creator's local currency only at payout, by the payments partner. Availability hours are always in the creator's own local time, so a campaign funded at 3 pm in New York still reaches a creator in India inside their evening window. Disclosure follows one automatic standard, "#ad" plus the platform's paid-partnership label, with per-country wording checked by the lawyer. Tax details follow the payout rail: PAN and bank or UPI details for creators in India, with TDS deducted as the chartered accountant confirms, and whatever identity and tax documentation Payoneer or PayPal asks for from creators abroad, with any year-end reporting done by that partner; see Payments for how the two payout rails share this work. Non-English product languages and extra local payout rails are a Phase 4 addition (section 7), not a gate on launch.

1.2 Dispatch density beats creator count

A brand's gig slots only fill if enough matching creators are inside their availability hours when offers go out. Three hundred creators spread across 21 categories, 8 leagues and 4 platforms leave most campaigns with empty slots. The same 300 concentrated in the ten categories our V1 pilot brands need (section 8.7) fill slots in minutes. So we never plan by the headline creator number. We plan by eligible creators inside availability windows per category, league, country and platform. A worldwide pool can be wide and still thin in any one country or time zone, so dispatch density, not total sign-ups, is what we watch. Section 8 gives the rule.

1.3 Dogfood on day 13, first pilot brand on day 14

A dogfood campaign is a campaign funded by Distribution Club itself and run through the normal product. On day 13 of the MVP sprint, Saturday 19 September 2026, the team funds its first dogfood campaign on its own accounts, acting as brand, as creators and as ops with real money, paid from the founder's own account if the Indian entity and bank account are not yet open. On day 14, Sunday 20 September 2026, the first pilot brand campaign is funded, and it dispatches the next morning, Monday 21 September 2026, the first real gig of Phase 1. So the team has been through the whole loop, offer to upload to review to post to view read to payout, before a paying brand depends on it. The first monthly payout run, on 1 October 2026, pays out those first two weeks of dogfood and pilot-brand earnings together. See Dogfooding.

1.4 Every phase has exit criteria

Dates are the plan. Exit criteria are the gate. The next phase's scope only opens when the criteria are met. If they are not, the phase review (section 11) chooses one of three things: extend the phase, cut scope in the order in section 12, or continue with a named risk written into the Assumptions page. Because the numbers are reviewed weekly, the phase review is never a surprise.

1.5 Keep humans in the loop until the numbers say otherwise

At MVP and through the beta an ops reviewer confirms every submission, about 6 minutes each. Brand onboarding in the beta is done by hand. Every fraud flag is looked at by a person. Automatic approval starts only in Phase 3, only for submissions where all 10 checklist items pass from creators with a score of 80 or above, with a 10% random spot check. This costs money: review is priced at $1.00 per submission in every phase, which holds the contribution margin at about 75% of revenue rather than higher; at MVP that dollar is the founder's own time, not cash. We accept that while we learn what the automated checks get wrong.

1.6 Prove the core loop first

Before we automate anything, we prove that the core loop, a brand pays, creators post, views come in, works at all. The MVP success test (section 3) is the bar: a real deposit, real posts, a real number of views, inside 14 days. Manual operation, the founder reviewing every submission and reading views by hand, is fine until that test passes. Automation follows the proof, not the other way round; there is no point building automated review or automated view reads for a loop that has not yet shown it works end to end.

1.7 Complexity behind the scenes

A brand only ever sees four things when it creates a campaign: what it is selling, how much it is spending, who it wants to reach, and whether it wants more posts or fewer bigger ones (section 9 and brief section 49 item 2). Everything else, which creators are picked, what a gig pays, when dispatch waves go out, how the payout arithmetic works, is decided by the platform and never shown to the brand. The product stays simple to buy even while the machinery behind it, described in full on the Product spec and Rate cards pages, is complex to operate.

2. The four phases at a glance

There are five phases if you count Phase 0, the two-week sprint that ships the MVP itself rather than preparing to build it. Sections 3 to 7 give the detail.

3. Phase 0, MVP sprint (7 to 20 September 2026)

Two weeks. The founder's decision on 4 September 2026 was to launch, not just prepare to launch: a working web app, real dispatch and a funded pilot brand by day 14. Everything a longer plan would build before the first gig instead ships as build-out in Phase 1 (section 4), while real gigs are already running. The day-by-day build schedule and every blocker with its lead time are on the MVP in two weeks page; this section gives the shape of the sprint and how it fits the rest of the rollout.

3.1 Goals

• Ship a mobile web app, installable to the home screen, that a creator can sign up on, a brand can fund a campaign on, and ops can review submissions on.
• Run dispatch for real from day one: candidate lists, waves, 30-minute expiry, accept and decline, offers by WhatsApp or SMS and email.
• Get the Indian entity and bank account in place, or dogfood from the founder's own account until they exist.
• Start every blocker with a lead time longer than two weeks (the native app store gates, the four platform API applications, Payoneer onboarding, WhatsApp Business API verification) so they run in the background instead of sitting on the sprint's own critical path.
• Reach day 14 with a dogfood gig already completed and the first pilot brand campaign funded.

3.2 What ships in the two weeks

The two-week MVP is a real, working marketplace with the manual steps still done by hand. It is not a demo.

• Web app, not native apps. A new personal Google Play account needs a 12-tester, 14-day closed test before production, and Apple Developer enrollment plus a first review takes several days to two weeks; neither fits two weeks. Native apps come in Phase 1, after the Google Play closed test and the Apple enrollment, both started in week 1, run their course in the background.
• Sign-in. Google or a phone one-time code. Apple sign-in is only required inside native iOS apps and waits for them.
• Social accounts entered by hand. The creator types their handles; there is no OAuth connect at MVP. Ops looks at the creator's last 10 posts and sets the league by hand from the median views. Leagues read automatically from the platform APIs are Phase 1 build-out.
• Dispatch, real and automatic from day one. This is the product, so it is not simplified: the candidate list, adaptive wave size, 30-minute offer expiry and accept or decline all work as described on the How it works page.
• Review by hand. The founder reviews every submission, an expected 50 to 100 a day, against the 10-item checklist as a form: pass or fail per item, a reason per failure, a decision within 48 hours. Automated checklist scoring is Phase 1 build-out, added once volume passes what the founder can review inside 48 hours, about 100 a day or 3,000 a month (brief section 29). The Business model page prices review at $1.00 per submission in every phase; at MVP it is the founder's time, not cash.
• Posting and manual checking. The creator posts the approved package themselves. The founder opens the posted link, checks it is public, checks the caption, and compares the video against the approved file by eye. Frame perceptual-hash matching is Phase 1 build-out.
• Views read by hand. Ops reads the public view count on day 3, day 7 and day 14 of each gig, or the creator sends a screenshot, and records it; earnings release from the recorded number, less whatever was already released. Reading views through the platform APIs is Phase 1 build-out.
• Wallet and ledger, real from day one. Double-entry, per creator, because money is the one part that must never be approximate.
• Payouts on the 1st of every month, with the first run on 1 October 2026, on the rails described on the Payments page.
• Brand side. A campaign creation form, the five checklist presets, fund deposit by payment link or checkout, and a simple dashboard showing gigs by state, posts live, views, fund, spent and balance.
• Ops console. A plain admin table of gigs and submissions with actions, hand-built or on an admin framework. It must exist before the first dispatch.

Not in the two weeks: native apps, OAuth social connect, automated review, frame hashing, automatic posting, referral rewards paid automatically (the referral link exists; the $5 reward is paid by hand), instant payout, volume pricing, managed campaigns, usage-rights automation (handled by email), and Preset F. Native apps, OAuth social connect, automated review, frame hashing and referral automation are Phase 1 build-out (section 4); automatic posting, volume pricing, usage-rights automation and Preset F come with the Phase 3 public launch (section 6); instant payout and managed campaigns come in Phase 4 (section 7).

3.3 Blockers running alongside the build

Every blocker below starts on 7 September 2026, the first day of the sprint, and runs on its own clock while the app is built. The single biggest one is the Indian entity and bank account: until it exists, no brand deposits are possible, so any dogfood gig before then is paid from the founder's own account (brief section 28). The full list, with lead times and what each one gates, is on the MVP in two weeks page: the entity and bank account, GST registration, the Razorpay account and Razorpay Route, RazorpayX or Cashfree Payouts, Payoneer Mass Payouts, the WhatsApp Business API, the Google Play and Apple developer accounts, the four platform API applications, and the legal papers. None of these block the sprint's own 14 days of engineering; several of them (Route, Payoneer, the native app stores, the platform API reads) are exactly what Phase 1 finishes.

3.4 Exit criteria

• The web app is live: a creator can sign up, a brand can create and fund a campaign, dispatch runs, and ops can review a submission.
• Legal papers (creator terms, brand terms, privacy policy, disclosure policy) are live.
• The ops console exists and has been used for at least one review.
• Day 13 (Saturday 19 September 2026): a dogfood gig has gone offer to payout on the team's own accounts.
• Day 14 (Sunday 20 September 2026): the first pilot brand campaign is funded, ready to dispatch on 21 September 2026.

Whether the Indian entity and bank account exist by day 14 decides how the first pilot brand is funded: if they exist, the brand pays into the entity's Razorpay account as normal; if not, the first gigs continue on dogfood money from the founder's own account until incorporation clears (brief section 28). Either way the sprint does not move the 21 September dispatch date; what can move is which money pays for the first gigs.

3.5 Who does what

• Founder: the day-by-day build on the MVP in two weeks page (data model, ledger and auth on days 1 and 2, then sign-up, dispatch, submission, wallet, payouts and dashboards through day 12), plus the creator sign-up flow, the offer and upload screens, the brand campaign form and the ops console table.
• Founder: incorporation and bank account, the Razorpay and Razorpay Route applications, signs the first pilot brand, gets its sample and brief ready and funds its campaign on day 14, sets leagues by hand from each creator's last 10 posts, reviews every submission by hand, opens every posted link to verify it, reads public view counts on day 3, 7 and 14 of each gig, keeps the ops console table current, and funds and runs the day 13 dogfood gig.
• Lawyer and accountant (paid per job): the four legal papers live before first dispatch; GST registration; TDS treatment on the first payout confirmed before 1 October 2026.

3.6 The MVP success test

The sprint's real target is not just shipping the app. It is proving the core loop works (section 1.6). The MVP success test is: a brand deposits $1,000 and, within 14 days, has at least ten posts live and 200,000 to 250,000 views for a US developer audience, with clicks reported (assumption). This can be the first pilot brand's campaign funded on day 14, tracked through its 14-day performance window into Phase 1, or a later dogfood or pilot campaign if the first one is smaller. Manual operation, review by hand, views read by hand, is fine until this test passes; the automation in section 4 follows the proof, not before it. Before the wallet and ledger are built on days 1 and 2 of the sprint, the payment flow itself is validated end to end with one real small transfer, described on the MVP in two weeks page.

4. Phase 1, Build-out while live (21 September 2026 to 22 January 2027)

Eighteen weeks. The first real gig dispatches on 21 September 2026, the first day of this phase, so everything below is built while paying brands and real creators already use the product, not before it. The order follows the manual steps the two-week MVP left by hand (brief sections 28 and 29): AI review, API reads and leagues, frame hashing, native apps once the store gates clear, Razorpay Route, Payoneer, and referral automation. Each item replaces a manual step with an automatic one without stopping dispatch.

4.1 Build-out items, in order

1. AI review. Automated checklist scoring for all 10 items, added once submission volume passes what the founder can review inside 48 hours, about 100 a day or 3,000 a month (brief section 29). Until then the founder keeps reviewing every submission by hand. Automated scoring speeds up the founder's read of each submission; it does not remove the human decision at MVP volumes.
2. API reads and leagues. OAuth social connect and platform API reads for view counts, so a creator's league is calculated automatically from the platform's own numbers instead of ops reading the last 10 posts by hand. Read-permission applications for all four platforms went in on 7 September 2026 and take 2 to 8 weeks; leagues switch over platform by platform as each read permission is approved.
3. Frame hashing. Frame perceptual-hash matching between the posted video and the approved file, replacing the founder's by-eye comparison. Transcript match stays the fallback, and an ops manual check stays the last resort, as described on the Product spec page.
4. Native apps, after the store gates. The Google Play closed test (12 testers, 14 days) or the organisation account's D-U-N-S verification, and the Apple Developer Program enrollment and first review, both started in week 1 of the sprint, run their course during this phase. The iOS and Android apps are built and submitted once those gates clear; the web app stays the permanent fallback.
5. Razorpay Route. The licensed split-settlement product that holds brand funds and pays creators directly, requested during Razorpay onboarding with an approval time of 1 to 2 weeks. Until it is approved, the MVP collects into the entity's own Razorpay account and pays creators from the entity's bank account through RazorpayX, at MVP volumes, with the lawyer's sign-off; the platform moves to Route as soon as it clears.
6. Payoneer. Payoneer Mass Payouts for creators outside India, sales-led onboarding of 2 to 6 weeks. Creators outside India can join and earn from day one; their wallet holds the balance until Payoneer is live, and they are told when payouts open.
7. Referral automation. The referral link exists from the MVP sprint, but the $5 reward is paid by hand until this phase automates it: paid into the wallet the moment the referred creator's first post is confirmed live and its floor releases, with the abuse controls described on the Dogfooding page.

None of these seven items gates dispatch. The manual version of each one is what the MVP sprint shipped, and dispatch, review, posting, payouts and the wallet all work, by hand where needed, from 21 September 2026. This is the difference from the earlier plan: the longer build used to happen before the first gig; now it happens around it, while real brands and creators depend on the manual version until each automated piece lands.

4.2 Deliverables

• Automated checklist scoring live, with the founder or a reviewer confirming every result until score-based auto-approval becomes a Phase 3 item.
• Platform API reads live for view counts and leagues on at least three of the four platforms by 22 January 2027, with ops reading the fourth by hand if its permission is still pending.
• Frame-hash matching live for posted videos.
• Creator app for iOS and Android submitted to both stores.
• Razorpay Route live, or a documented reason it is still on RazorpayX.
• Payoneer live for creators outside India, or a documented wait with wallets holding balances.
• Referral rewards paid automatically at publish instead of by hand.

4.3 Exit criteria

• A gig has gone end to end with the automated checklist score, an API-read view count and a frame-hash match on at least three platforms.
• Both app store submissions are in, or a named reason either store gate has not cleared.
• Read-permission API access approved for at least three platforms, so leagues and view tracking work without ops reading by hand for most creators. If any read permission is still pending on 22 January 2027, the phase review decides whether to start the beta on the remaining platforms (section 12).
• Razorpay Route or the RazorpayX fallback is paying creators cleanly, with the chartered accountant's sign-off on TDS treatment.
• Weekly dogfood campaigns, the first-gig guarantee and the monthly payout run have continued without a missed cycle since day 13 of the sprint.

4.4 Who does what

• Founder: the native creator apps once the store gates clear; the money side of the build (Route, Payoneer, referral automation, payout batch) and the gig-flow side (AI review, API reads, frame hashing); native app screens and refinements to the review queue as AI review comes online; confirms AI review results against hand reviews until it is trusted; runs the weekly dogfood campaign and watches the first-gig guarantee queue; signs further pilot brands beyond the first and onboards them by hand; chases the platform API approvals, Route, Payoneer and the store gates; runs the payout batch on the 1st; keeps reviewing submissions by hand until AI review is trusted at volume.

5. Phase 2, Open creator beta (worldwide) (25 January to 26 March 2027)

Nine weeks with real brands, real creators and real money. Creator sign-up opens to every eligible creator worldwide on 25 January 2027, the first day of the beta, because we want the largest possible creator pool at launch so that brands find slots filled. The brand side stays closed: nobody funds a campaign without being one of the 10 invited pilot brands.

5.1 Goals

• 10 pilot brands funding campaigns through the normal dashboard.
• 3,000 creator sign-ups worldwide, from creators who joined during Phase 0 and Phase 1, the dogfood posts and open sign-up.
• 300 creators with a completed first gig by the end of the beta.
• 150 completed brand gigs, plus dogfood gigs on top. Completed means the post is live and the 14-day performance window has closed.

Some arithmetic. The minimum fund is $600. A Bronze 2 gig at a typical 12,500-median creator (Tier 1 audience, Reels, SaaS and web apps) has expected earnings of $62.50 (CPM $5.00: $2.50 base, Reels 1.25, category factor 1.6), so it takes about $80.63 from the fund (expected earnings plus a $2.00 running cost, divided by 0.8); $600 buys about 7 such gigs. If each pilot brand funds the minimum once, that is about 70 slots, well short of the 150 target even if every slot fills and every gig completes. So 150 completed gigs needs several brands to fund above the minimum or fund more than once. The brand repeat criterion (4 of 10 brands fund a second campaign within 60 days) is what makes 150 realistic.

5.2 How the beta runs

• Manual onboarding. The founder onboards each brand by hand, does the brand-safety check within 2 business hours, and helps write the brief and choose a preset.
• Creator sign-up open worldwide. From 25 January 2027 any eligible creator, in any country a payout rail can reach, can sign up; there is no waitlist gate once the beta opens.
• Ops reviews everything. Every submission gets an automated result within 24 hours and a human decision within 48 hours.
• Audience-based matching, not city targeting. A campaign is accepted only when at least 40 eligible creators sit in that audience segment and league; otherwise the brand widens the audience or lowers the bar on distribution preference. Preset C, "Restaurant or store visit," and city targeting are moved to "later: local distribution" and are not part of the V1 beta.
• Dogfood continues. One campaign a week at $2,000, the first-gig guarantee, and the "Payout day" campaign on the 1st of each month.
• Weekly releases carrying the top 3 fixes from friction capture.
• Monthly brand check-ins by the founder with every pilot brand.

5.3 Payout runs

Payouts run monthly from 1 October 2026 (section 3). By the time Phase 2 opens on 25 January 2027, four runs have already happened: 1 October, 1 November and 1 December 2026, and 1 January 2027, paying dogfood and pilot-brand earnings since 21 September 2026. The runs that fall inside Phase 2 are:

1. 1 February 2027. Pays January's earnings, the first month that includes the worldwide creator beta alongside dogfood and the pilot brands. Only creators with completed payout setup (identity, tax form, bank account) and an Available balance of at least $20 are paid; smaller balances roll over.
2. 1 March 2027. Pays February earnings, the first full month with the beta open worldwide.
3. 1 April 2027. Pays March earnings. It lands after the phase review on 26 March, so the review uses the payout runs completed inside the phase plus Available balances on the day.

The founder does each run from the ops console, not from scripts.

5.4 Success criteria

5.5 Exit criteria

Phase 3 opens when at least 8 of the 11 criteria are met, and none of fill rate, on-time submission or fraud is badly missed (assumption). Badly missed means fill rate under 50%, on-time submission under 60%, or fraud over 4% (assumption). Those three are singled out because a public launch makes them worse, not better: more brands with empty slots, more missed deadlines, more money at risk. A miss on brand repeat can be fixed with the doors open. A miss on fill rate cannot.

5.6 Who does what

• Founder: onboards and supports the 10 pilot brands with monthly check-ins; reviews every submission, clears fraud flags within 3 business days, answers creator support; runs the weekly dogfood campaign and the friction review; the weekly release; payout runs on the 1st, weekly metrics review, the phase review on 26 March 2027.

6. Phase 3, Public launch (29 March to 25 June 2027)

Thirteen weeks. Any brand outside the prohibited categories, in any country the payments partner can collect from, can sign up and fund a campaign without talking to us. Creator sign-up has already been open worldwide since Phase 2 began.

6.1 What ships

• Self-serve brand sign-up with a volume addition. No monthly fee: the platform keeps 20% of every deposit at once, and the creator's fee is paid from the other 80%, the creator pool, pay as you go. A brand that deposits $10,000 or more in a calendar month gets 5% of that month's deposits added to its creator pool at month end (assumption). See Business model.
• Open creator sign-up continues worldwide. Eligibility is checked automatically at connect time, for a creator in any country.
• Auto-approval for high-score creators. Submissions with all 10 items passing, from creators with a score of 80 or above, are approved without a human, with a 10% random spot check. Everything else still goes to a reviewer. The 10 completed gigs per 30 days cap is raised for high-score creators.
• Custom checklists. Brands can write all 10 items, not just 3.
• Referral open to all. Every creator's link pays $5 when the referred creator's first post goes live.
• Preset F, Clipping. Repurposing brand-provided footage.
• Brand rating in the creator score. The 1 to 5 rating a brand gives each post enters the quality part at 10% weight, alongside first-pass approval at 20%, so quality stays at 30% in total.
• Dogfood budget rises to $5,000 per week.

6.2 Targets by 25 June 2027

A paying brand is a brand that has deposited a fund in the last 90 days (assumption). An active creator is a creator whose account is eligible and connected and who has answered at least one offer, accept or decline, in the last 30 days (assumption). Two checks: $200,000 across 2,000 gigs is $100 per gig on average, between the Bronze 2 take of about $80.63 and the Gold 1 take of about $494.69, so the plan assumes a mix of leagues at or below the Scenarios base mix, which now averages $112.83 taken from the fund per gig under the V1 model (assumption), or a fund not fully spent inside the month (assumption). And $200,000 across 100 brands is $2,000 per brand per month, four times the minimum fund, so most brands must be repeat funders by June.

6.3 Exit criteria

• The five targets above.
• The 11 beta criteria still hold at the larger volume, measured over the last 4 weeks of the phase.
• The review SLA holds with auto-approval on, and the spot check finds problems in under 10% of auto-approved posts (assumption).

6.4 Who does what

• Founder: outbound to brands matching the pilot profile and follow-up on self-serve sign-ups that stall before funding; builds volume pricing and billing, auto-approval, custom checklists, Preset F, open sign-up and referral; payouts, weekly metrics, the phase review on 25 June 2027.
• Ops reviewer (hired once submissions pass about 100 a day, section 10): review queue, fraud, support, the spot check, once the trigger is crossed. Submissions climb towards about 2,700 a month as the phase reaches its 2,000-gigs-a-month target (section 6.2), close to but not yet past the 3,000-a-month trigger, so the founder may still be reviewing alone by the phase review.

7. Phase 4, Scale (1 July to 31 December 2027)

Six months. The product works; now it must work for bigger customers, bigger creators and more platforms.

7.1 What ships

• Managed campaigns at a per-campaign platform cut. Priced per campaign with the platform keeping 35% of the deposit instead of the standard 20%, creators get 65% (assumption), no monthly fee: a campaign manager from ops writes the brief, picks the leagues and runs the campaign.
• Agencies. Accounts that run campaigns for several brands, plus an API for agencies.
• Diamond custom deals. Custom rates above the Diamond CPM for creators with 1,000,000 or more median views, opened beyond invite-only (assumption).
• Instant payout at a 2% fee, alongside the free payout on the 1st.
• The 21-category roadmap opens. V1's ten categories (AI tools, SaaS and web apps, developer tools, productivity apps, fitness apps, health apps, lifestyle apps, education apps, kids apps, games) widen to the full 21-category list on Rate cards (assumption; section 8.7).
• Local distribution. City targeting and Preset C, "Restaurant or store visit," return as a product line for local businesses, once V1's audience-based model is proven (assumption; section 8.7).
• LinkedIn and Facebook Reels as the fifth and sixth platforms.
• Product languages Spanish, Hindi and Portuguese for the product and campaign briefs, worldwide, not tied to any one country.
• Extra local payout rails through the payments partner, for example UPI in India and Pix in Brazil, on top of the two rails already live since Phase 0 and Phase 1 (RazorpayX or Cashfree for India, Payoneer for creators outside India).

7.2 Targets by 31 December 2027

10,000 gigs across 400 brands is 25 gigs per brand per month. 10,000 gigs across 15,000 active creators is under one gig per creator per month, which is expected: dispatch sends at least 2 offers per slot, so far more creators answer offers than complete gigs. 50,000 creator sign-ups against 15,000 active creators means most sign-ups are not yet doing regular gigs, which is expected of a worldwide pool that can be wide but thin (section 8). The margin holds because review, collection, payout and storage costs are fixed per gig in every phase; what automated review changes is the founder's own time, which is why the hiring rule in section 10 matters.

7.3 Exit criteria

• The four volume targets and the margin target.
• Product languages Spanish, Hindi and Portuguese live in the product and campaign briefs, and the extra local payout rails active through the payments partner.
• Posting and view tracking working on six platforms with the same gig, checklist and rate card.

8. Supply: how we get creators

Supply means creators who are eligible, connected, inside their availability hours and willing to accept. We do not buy ads to get them. The product recruits them.

Any eligible creator anywhere can sign up and accept gigs from day one of the MVP sprint. Only the payout is not yet available everywhere: creators in India are paid through RazorpayX or Cashfree on the 1st from the first payout run. Creators outside India can sign up, accept gigs and build an Available balance, but their payout waits for Payoneer Mass Payouts, a Phase 1 build-out item (section 4); until it is live, their wallet holds the balance and they are told when payouts open.

8.1 Dogfood campaigns and the first-gig guarantee

Every week from day 13 of the MVP sprint, Distribution Club funds a Preset G "Creator story" campaign. Creators make a short honest video about the offer, the gig and the payout, posted on their own accounts through the platform with their referral link in the caption. Those posts are the main way new creators hear about us. Every new creator who passes eligibility gets a first offer within 7 days; if no brand campaign matches them, a dogfood gig is dispatched instead. The target is a cost per eligible creator sign-up under $15 by the end of Phase 2. Budgets and guardrails are on the Dogfooding page.

8.2 Referral

Each creator has a referral link. When a referred creator's first post goes live and its floor releases, the referrer gets $5 in their wallet, paid by hand until referral automation ships in the Phase 1 build-out (section 4). It runs from day 13 of the MVP sprint with the dogfood cohort, continues with the beta cohort from 25 January 2027, and opens to everyone in Phase 3.

8.3 Creators from day one, not from a waitlist

The MVP sprint has no six-week window for building a waitlist before anything opens: dispatch is real from day one, so a creator who signs up from day 14 (20 September 2026) is taking a real offer, not joining a list. The team's own accounts form the first dogfood cohort from day 13; friendly creators recruited by hand join alongside them. The rest join through dispatch, dogfood posts and referral as Phase 1 build-out continues, on the way to the 3,000 worldwide sign-ups targeted for the end of Phase 2, in batches matched to the categories the pilot brands need.

8.4 Category focus

Creators pick up to 3 of 21 individual categories as interests long-term (full list, with factors, on Rate cards), but V1 campaigns are accepted in only ten: AI tools, SaaS and web apps, developer tools, productivity apps, fitness apps, health apps, lifestyle apps, education apps, kids apps and games, all at the 1.6 factor (assumption; section 8.7). We concentrate recruitment on creators already making developer-productivity, SaaS and software content rather than spreading across all 21 categories. The remaining 11 categories open as the roadmap widens in Phase 4 (section 7.1).

8.5 Availability density targets

The rule: a brand campaign in a category is accepted only when at least 40 eligible creators sit inside their availability windows for that audience segment and league (assumption; brief section 50 item 4). An audience segment is the audience the brand describes, for example "US developers," matched by the creator's audience geography and audience interest rather than by where the creator themselves lives. Why 40: wave 1 sends offers per open slot based on that audience segment and league's recent acceptance rate, from 2 up to 6, with a minimum of 2 until there is enough data, so a 10-slot campaign needs at least 20 candidates in wave 1 alone. Offers expire after 30 minutes and unfilled slots go to wave 2 with the next ranked creators. Forty gives two full waves before the pool runs dry, with room for the limits that shrink it: 3 active gigs at once, 1 gig per brand per 30 days, 10 completed gigs per 30 days, and a score of 40 or above. In Phase 2 the founder checks the count in the ops console's dispatch monitor before accepting a pilot brand's campaign. From Phase 3 the dashboard warns the brand at campaign creation when the chosen audience is under the line for the mix the planner needs (assumption). Eight pay leagues, up from six, make the 40-per-league rule harder to clear early on, since the same pool of eligible creators is split into more buckets; V1's ten categories, rather than 21, help offset that by concentrating the pool instead of splitting it further. For dispatch and density counting only, Bronze 1 and Bronze 2 can be treated as one bucket, so an audience segment needs 40 eligible creators across Bronze 1 and 2 combined, rather than 40 in each separately; the CPM a creator earns still depends on their exact league (assumption). City targeting and Preset C, which used to share this same 40-creator threshold counted by city, are moved to "later: local distribution" and are not part of the V1 density rule (section 8.7).

This is why a worldwide launch is not the same as a large launch. A creator pool can be wide, spread across many countries, and still be thin inside any one audience segment. Dispatch density, eligible creators inside their availability windows for a given audience segment, league and platform, is the number to watch. Total sign-ups on their own do not tell us whether a brand's slots will fill.

8.6 What we tell creators

Honest numbers from the rate card, every time. A gig pays a CPM (a rate per 1,000 real views) set by the creator's audience geography, the platform, the campaign's category and the creator's league (full tables on Rate cards): for example, a Bronze 2 creator with a Tier 1 audience posting on Reels for a SaaS and web apps campaign has a CPM of $5.00 ($2.50 base, Reels 1.25, category factor 1.6). Expected earnings for a gig is the creator's own median views times the CPM, shown in the offer before they accept, together with the floor and the maximum payout. 20% of expected earnings, the floor, is released when the post goes live. The rest follows real views, read on day 3, day 7 and day 14, up to the maximum payout, which is expected earnings unless the brand has switched on an optional bonus of up to 1.5 times expected. So we say, for that Bronze 2 creator with a 12,500 median (expected earnings $62.50): "You will earn at least $12.50 if your post goes live and stays up. You will earn about $62.50 if it does as well as your posts normally do, and up to $93.75 if the brand has a bonus on and it does even better; views beyond your median also raise your median for future gigs." We also say that the beta target is 60% of posted gigs earning their full expected amount or more, that the limit is 10 completed gigs per 30 days, that money is paid on the 1st once the Available balance is $20 or more, and that each release waits 48 hours in a fraud hold. Nobody is told they can quit their job.

8.7 V1 scope (decided)

Section 1.2 already says dispatch density beats total creator count. The founder decided on 5 September 2026 to concentrate supply on purpose rather than spread it thin across every audience and category from day one (brief section 50, resolving the start-narrow proposal in brief section 49 item 8).

V1 customers. Indie developers, indie hackers and small SaaS companies. Sales, pilot brands and dogfood campaigns all target this group first (section 9).

V1 categories. Ten campaign categories only: AI tools; SaaS and web apps; developer tools; productivity apps; fitness apps; health apps; lifestyle apps; education apps; kids apps; games. All ten use the "Software, apps and SaaS" factor of 1.6 (assumption; retune with data). The 21-category list on Rate cards stays as the roadmap for later, not V1.

Audience, not creator location. A brand describes the audience it wants, for example "US developers" or "founders and indie hackers, anywhere in the English-speaking world," rather than picking creators by where they live. The platform matches creators whose audience fits: audience geography from platform insights, audience interest from the creator's content category and past campaign results. A creator can live anywhere. The geography tiers in the CPM formula are the audience's, as before.

No city targeting in V1. The countries-and-cities filter and Preset C, "Restaurant or store visit," are removed from the V1 product and moved to "later: local distribution." The density rule becomes at least 40 eligible creators per audience segment and league (assumption; section 8.5).

Platforms. All four platforms stay available in V1: developer and founder audiences are strong on X and YouTube, so there is no reason to drop a platform outright. But because dispatch density is now measured per audience segment rather than per country, V1 may in practice run mostly on X, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels (assumption; brief section 50 item 9).

Long-term product. Stated here and on the Overview: give us your product and budget, and we will optimise its distribution. The outcomes roadmap is views first, then clicks, then sign-ups, then customers. The MVP reports posts, views and clicks; Phase 3 adds conversion tracking (pixel or postback) and cost per conversion; Phase 4 adds budget optimisation toward the brand's chosen outcome, shifting remaining budget toward the creators, platforms and categories that produced the best cost per outcome (assumption). Distribution Club is not a creator marketplace to its customers, even though it remains a gig marketplace on the creator side.

When V1 widens. The ten V1 categories are the only campaign categories accepted through Phase 3. The 21-category roadmap and local distribution, city targeting and Preset C, open in Phase 4 alongside the other Phase 4 additions (assumption; section 7.1), once the V1 audience segments are proven at density.

9. Demand: how we get brands

9.1 Pilot brand profile

V1 customers are indie developers, indie hackers and small SaaS companies (brief section 50 item 1). Sales, pilot brands and dogfood campaigns all target this group first.

• Indie developer and small SaaS products (Preset B App install and demo). No physical sample, fast gigs, easy to measure. Product categories are limited to the ten V1 categories: AI tools, SaaS and web apps, developer tools, productivity apps, fitness apps, health apps, lifestyle apps, education apps, kids apps, and games.

Where these brands are found (assumption, to be tested against actual sign-ups): X, Hacker News, Product Hunt, indie hacker communities (for example Indie Hackers itself and similar Slack or Discord groups), and developer newsletters. Outbound and dogfood posts point here first rather than at general consumer or local-business channels.

Each pilot brand must be outside the prohibited list (alcohol, tobacco and vaping, gambling, crypto and unregulated investments, political and religious content, adult content, prescription drugs, weapons) and ready to fund at least $600.

At MVP the pay-in rail is Razorpay, tied to the Indian entity (brief section 32), so the first pilot brands are Indian brands, or brands elsewhere happy to pay in Indian rupees through Razorpay. A brand that needs to pay in another currency waits for a later payments addition; nothing on this page states a date for that, so it is not promised.

9.2 The sales motion by phase

• Phase 0 to 2: founder-led. The founder signs the letters of intent, onboards each brand by hand, writes briefs with them, and checks in monthly. Ten brands, all known by name.
• Phase 3: self-serve plus outbound. Brands sign up and fund without talking to anyone. The founder does outbound to brands matching the pilot profile.
• Phase 4: agencies and managed campaigns. Agencies bring many brands at once. Managed campaigns bring brands that want ops to run campaigns for them; by this point the hire triggers in section 10 may have brought on an ops reviewer, and an engineer if profit supports one.

9.3 What we promise brands

What a brand gives us is four inputs, nothing more: product, a short brief with the destination link and optional promo code and assets; budget, the deposit, minimum $600; audience, described in the brand's own words, for example "US developers" or "anywhere in the English-speaking world," and one of the ten V1 categories; and distribution preference, "more posts" for many smaller creators, "fewer, bigger posts" for a few big ones, or "auto". Everything else, the checklist preset, the platforms and formats, the deadline, the sample flow, is chosen by the platform with sensible defaults and sits under "advanced options" if a brand wants to change it (brief section 49 item 2).

What the brand gets back is outcome results, not process:

• Expected posts and expected views for the budget it typed in, shown before it funds, plus the effective cost per 1,000 views. Leagues, rate cards and the creator mix behind that number stay internal (section 1.7).
• Post checked, views read from the source: the creator posts the package we approved and we check the live post against it, store the post ID and read views from the source. Nothing is self-reported. We post through each platform's official API where the platform allows it, target Phase 3.
• A dashboard with simple controls (pause, add budget, change distribution preference) and rich results: spend, creators used, posts live with links, views, clicks, conversions once a brand adds a conversion pixel or postback (promo code redemptions and tracked-link conversions at MVP; pixel or postback conversions are a Phase 3 addition, assumption), cost per 1,000 views, cost per click, and a timeline.
• What one gig takes from your fund: the platform's 20% cut is taken once, at deposit, and never changes. A gig reserves its expected earnings, plus the running cost of that gig, from your creator pool when a creator accepts; if the post earns less than expected by day 14, the difference stays in your fund's creator pool for more gigs, instead of leaving it. Unused pool balance stays as fund balance for your next campaign; deposits are not refunded.

9.4 Objections and answers

"Why do I pay the whole fund up front?"

Creators only accept offers when the money is real. The fund is held by a licensed payments partner, not by us, and is committed to a gig only when a creator accepts. Cancelled gigs and earnings short of the expected amount return money to the creator pool, and what is left stays as fund balance for the brand's next campaign; deposits are not refunded.

"A Bronze 2 gig that takes about $39 from my fund costs more than a $1-per-1,000-views bounty."

A bounty pays only for views, with no commitment from the creator: no deadline, no acceptance, and the brand does its own reviewing. What one gig takes from your fund here is all-in: it covers platform review against the 10-item checklist, a live post check, view reads on day 3, day 7 and day 14, the 48-hour fraud hold, and creator pay that starts paying out the moment the post goes live. A brand that funds a Bronze 2 gig knows the post will exist, on time, checked against the checklist, before a single view is counted. Brands that deposit $10,000 or more in a calendar month get 5% of that month's deposits added to their creator pool at month end automatically (assumption), with no monthly fee to unlock it.

"What if the video is bad?"

All 10 items must pass. A failed submission gets one revision with a 48-hour deadline; a second failure cancels the gig and the brand pays $0 for it. The brand can add the approval step, rate each post 1 to 5, and report a post. Creators with a score below 40 stop receiving offers.

"Is my brand safe on a stranger's account?"

Item 8 bans competitor products, item 7 bans reused or stock footage, and item 10 adds "#ad" and the platform's paid-partnership label automatically. Posts must stay live for 90 days. Every brand is safety-checked by ops within 2 business hours, and prohibited categories never get in.

10. One founder, hires by trigger

Distribution Club is one person through 2027 (brief section 9, founder decision 4 September 2026). The founder does product, engineering, review, ops and sales. A chartered accountant and a lawyer are paid per job, not on payroll; there is no other payroll and no fixed headcount plan. Hires happen only when profit pays for them. Two hires are named here as triggers, not dates: an ops reviewer first, then an engineer.

10.1 First hire: an ops reviewer

At MVP the founder reviews every submission by hand, an expected 50 to 100 a day, against the 10-item checklist, with a decision inside 48 hours (brief section 29). The trigger for the first hire is submissions passing about 100 a day, about 3,000 a month. At about 6 minutes per submission, 3,000 submissions a month is about 300 hours of review, well past what one person can sustain alongside product, engineering and sales. When submissions cross that line, the founder hires an ops reviewer to take over routine review, freeing the founder for everything else. Submissions run higher than gigs because one gig in three needs a revision, so submissions are about 1.33 times completed gigs.

Where this sits against the phase targets: Phase 2's 150 completed brand gigs over 9 weeks is roughly 70 a month, about 95 submissions with revisions, plus dogfood gigs, nowhere near the trigger, so the founder reviews alone. Phase 3's target of 2,000 completed gigs a month is about 2,700 submissions, close to the 3,000-a-month trigger but not past it, so the founder may still be reviewing alone through most of Phase 3, with automated checklist scoring cutting the time each review takes. Phase 4's target of 10,000 completed gigs a month is about 13,300 submissions, well past the trigger, so an ops reviewer, and likely more than one as volume grows, is doing routine review while the founder handles fraud, support and the harder calls.

10.2 Second hire: an engineer

The second hire is an engineer, triggered when monthly profit covers the salary for three months (assumption). The Scenarios page models the cost base this runs against: no salaries, $2,500 a month of other fixed costs, and no dogfood spend budgeted in. Whether and when that trigger fires depends on which scenario plays out; it is a profit test, not a phase or a calendar date.

10.3 Hire triggers

The accountant and lawyer are paid per job in every phase, not on payroll.

11. Operating cadence

• Daily: review queue check. The founder checks the queue each morning against the 24-hour SLA and the 90% target, and flags any fraud hold older than 3 business days.
• Weekly: release. From Phase 2, one release a week carrying the top 3 fixes from friction capture and any metric-driven change.
• Weekly: metrics review. The founder reviews the 11 beta criteria and the dogfood metrics.
• Weekly: dogfood campaign. Brand zero funds one Preset G campaign every week from day 13 of the MVP sprint.
• Monthly, on the 1st: payout run. The founder runs the payout batch from the ops console. The same day, the "Payout day" dogfood campaign is dispatched to creators who were paid.
• Monthly, during the beta: brand check-ins. The founder speaks with each of the 10 pilot brands.
• Phase reviews on 20 September 2026, 22 January 2027, 26 March 2027, 25 June 2027 and 31 December 2027. Each checks the exit criteria, decides extend, cut or continue with a named risk, and updates the Timeline and Assumptions pages.

12. What we cut if we are late

Being late is likely somewhere, most likely on API approvals; see Challenges. When we are late, we cut in this order, first to last:

1. Automatic posting. At MVP the creator posts the approved package themselves and the platform verifies the link, which already works without any platform's publishing permission. Switching on automatic posting per platform waits until that platform's publishing permission is approved, and slips first whenever an approval runs late, with no effect on launch.
2. X view tracking. X is the only platform with a paid monthly API tier for reading view counts. Creators can still post on X manually under creator-posted mode; if the paid tier is delayed we drop X from launch, which still leaves three platforms with the same gig, checklist and rate card. It comes back in the first release after the tier is active.
3. Preset F, Clipping. It needs brand-provided footage handling and different checklist items. Nothing in the core gig flow depends on it.
4. Custom checklists. Brands can already rewrite 3 of the 10 items.
5. Instant payout. The free payout on the 1st already works. The 2% option is a convenience.
6. Volume pricing. Pay as you go covers the public launch. Delaying volume pricing delays the 5% of a month's deposits added to the creator pool of high-volume brands, not the product.
7. Product languages (Spanish, Hindi and Portuguese) and the extra local payout rails. Dropped last because English at launch and the two payout rails already let any eligible creator and any eligible brand join; these are a convenience for specific countries, not a gate on joining.

Four things are never cut, whatever the date:

• The review SLA. 90% of submissions get an automated result within 24 hours and a decision within 48 hours. A late review is a late post, a late view read and a creator who stops accepting.
• Payout on the 1st. Creators plan around it. Missing one run undoes every dogfood video that said we pay.
• Disclosure. "#ad" and the platform's paid-partnership label on every post, added automatically. A legal duty under disclosure regimes worldwide (the US FTC Endorsement Guides among them), not a feature.
• The fraud hold. Every release waits 48 hours while checks run. Removing it would pay bought views with brand money.

The seven things on the cut list are scope. The four on the never-cut list are trust. Scope can be added next month. Trust, once lost, takes far longer than a phase to win back.